by E. M. Stormo
Clouds formed one by one from the vapors emanating out of town. To Faron, they appeared as abominations. Each cloud hosted hordes of smaller creatures like locusts and frogs, which fused together into larger monster faces. The clouds headed in a group towards the village at an unnatural pace. God’s own clouds never moved so quickly. They took their time and their waters never tasted so sweet. Real rain had no flavor, but this unnatural rain tasted like sugar candy. Someone had switched on the weather machine in Devil’s town.
Amos sympathized with the boy, but to his mind, the clouds had long since been capable of transformation. They appeared as their puffy white selves now, even if they were synthetic abominations. There was no time to waste on cloud-gazing anyway. One of the nameless cattle had run off on its own, and they needed to retrieve it before the rain fell and sweetened the meat. A single storm could taint the cattle’s flavor enough to make a ham-and-cheese roll-up inedible for even the most undiscerning villager, Eli the Eater, whose appetite knew no bounds. Such was the awful power of the weather machine.
Amos followed the cloven tracks through the mud to a path of chewed-up grass on the hill, and stopped at the edge of the woods that separated the town from Abramsland. In a small clearing, he located the cow staring into space. Her black beady eyes didn’t register the two villagers. Instead she focused on an invisible force permeating the trees.
Amos plucked a nearby leaf and crushed it between his fingers. “Do you see it, Son?”
Faron cupped the crushed pieces in his hands. “It’s softer than a normal leaf.”
“Yes, and the light hits it like plastic.”
Faron cradled the pieces before blowing them into the wind. He let out a deep sigh knowing what was to come. “Do we have to, Father? She looks so sad.”
Amos unsheathed his butcher’s knife and handed it to Faron. “It’s time for you to learn how. I was just your age when Grandpa Swartzenheimer taught me.”
Faron took the knife in both hands. It was heavier than the chef’s knife Mother let him hold. The cow sneezed. She sounded real enough.
“Do we have to?” Faron made sure. “She’s not doing anything.”
“God commands it. She’s not a cow anymore. She’s an abomination before God.”
Faron held the knife up to her belly. The blade caught the light of the dimmed sun. Real metal, as real as anything in the village. Real houses, people, and animals. But in the city, everything was a copy and the only way you could tell was by cutting it open. The cow leaned into the blade as Faron made the first cut. He drew a cross on her side and what looked like real blood spilled out. She even moaned in realistic pain.
Amos knew better. He swiped a sample of the blood and tasted it. “Much too sweet. Keep going, Son.”
Faron burst into tears as he stabbed deeper into the cow’s insides where muscles and organs were revealed to be exactly in the places they should be. She buckled and tipped over on her side. A moat of blood surrounded her. Faron’s clothes were soaked, and it felt warm just like the real thing. “You are wrong, Father.”
The cow lowed for a merciful end, but Amos was undeterred. He dug his own hands into the side and began pulling out her insides. Faron could name every part that his father flung over his shoulder. The pieces landed into a pile as the cow was torn inside-out.
Sweet rain began to fall on the pitiful scene. Amos shook out his flat-brimmed cap and Faron did the same. To remove one’s head covering left them vulnerable to Devil’s weather.
Animal dressings were always isolated to a designated killing barn, far removed from the eyes of mothers and girls. To host such a scene in the open felt wrong to Faron. Even God should be spared to look upon such horrors.
Amos kept digging and scratching at the insides like Madman Uri, who was known to be less than delicate with his dressings. Finally, he paused and caught his breath. “Son, I am almost never wrong. You have to pull out the heart of things to truly grasp their design.” He reached into the cow once more and out came its false heart, not red or beating, but the color of pure plastic and humming like an engine. “Here, hold it.”
Faron held the heart to his eyeline. It continued to whir as the cow grew silent.
“It’s a fake,” Amos said, “designed by the Devil. The Devil can’t create, so he makes cruel mockery of life. Do you know what a real heart looks like?”
“Yes, Father.”
“Can you picture it?”
“Yes, of course.”
“First you picture an apple.”
Faron closed his eyes as tight as they would go. In the black void of his mind’s eye, the bloodiest red apple appeared in rich detail, like it was really floating there, dripping with dew, looking so crisp that he had to take a bite out of it.
Amos continued to guide him. The elder didn’t need to close his eyes as his own apple hung above his son’s head. “Now remove the leaf and stem. Wipe away all the dew and shine so that there is a solid red ball.”
Faron did as he was instructed, removing all details from the apple. Meanwhile, their clothes were getting sweetened with rainwater and would have to be thoroughly washed in the real waters of the nearby creek.
“Now round off the tops into two hillocks and bring the bottom to a sharp point.”
“This is a cow’s heart?” Faron asked. He saw oak planks cut around the curves. “That’s the shape carved into Joshua’s barn.”
“Yes, my Son. It’s the universal heart symbol from which all real hearts are born. It wards off the evil spirits of hate.”
As they walked back to the village, the rains subsided. The grass had its fill. The Devil gave just enough to never quench thirst. Out came the crescent sun to shine its daily allotment of light. When Amos was a boy, he recalled the sun was orange and always full, the air so thin you could see for miles. Faron had only known the white sun with its different phases and the air thick with vapors that zigzagged across the sky.
The heart symbol atop Joshua’s barn appeared less vivid than the one Faron had earlier shaped in his mind. “Why didn’t it work? Why didn’t it ward off the spirits?” he asked his father.
“The Devil grows stronger each day,” Amos answered.
“And God?”
“Man has turned from God. He has corrupted creation. Each of us in our own minds, especially the townsfolk. Man has copied every aspect of creation and replaced them with abominations. Slowly it infects our village until it too will be replaced by an abominable copy. We will continue to suffer for what Man has done until we turn back, one by one, to God.”
Amos cracked the barn door open. All they could see were the shines of eyes that anticipated their fate, but it may as well have been candle-lights waiting to be snuffed. These weren’t animals. They had no hearts or apples.
“Do we have to?” Faron asked.
“We’ll wait till moonrise.”
At around 8 o’clock when everyone was asleep, the two villagers set fire to each cow until the whole herd went up in flames. Amos made Faron hold the torch. He told the boy to keep the apple close, but even the elder had to close his eyes. Images of his wife’s face flashed in between hearts and apples, but the details were vague. He couldn’t recall her eyes exactly, or the precise line of her mouth, only a fluffy cloud of her countenance. She was lucky to never live to see such abominations.
The fire burnt for a few hours which set off the sensors from the local weather station. Amos knew the consequences of violating a Stage 3 restriction and accepted he would suffer them in the morning. The cattle remained in place as they burned, a sure sign they were imposters. Real cattle would jump about like fireballs. These cows had given up.
Drones whizzed overhead to inspect the damage. They were made to resemble giant dragonflies, a supposed byproduct of the recent mini-carboniferous age, but Amos knew better. He didn’t need to cut them open to know they were the Devil’s machines, printed on plastic. Once they surveyed the damage, a larger craft descended from the clouds and dropped a payload of sweet water onto the conflagration.
Eli the Eater awoke at dawn to the smell of the burnt abomination. He brushed off the crumbs from his bedtime snacks, grabbed his cap and suspenders, and set off to locate the source of the smell. Only Madman Uri was allowed to go about shirtless during the day and that’s exactly who Eli found, kneeling in prayer in front of the blackened bodies, his cap laid out in front of him.
Eli put his hand on Uri’s bare shoulder. “They’re no good, brother,” Eli said. “You see? The blood is black.”
Uri clicked his teeth together. He had removed his tongue for reasons no one in Abramsland could guess.
“Run and get a minister and bring him here.”
Uri wasn’t sure which minister Eli meant, so he brought back all four. The six men surrounded the herd and debated what to do. Would the eyes of Vestalton be upon them yet? Yes, they watched the village without looking. Would they send someone to investigate? Yes, they always did. They counted an inventory of every living thing in Abramsland. If even a squirrel fell out of place, their drones would swarm, and one of their shapeshifters would come. They decided to hide the mess even if they had already been discovered.
The removal of the bodies took two-and-a-half hours using the usual low-tech methods of wooden beams and wheelbarrows. It was difficult work that made them sweat and broke their backs, but that was the only kind of work they knew. An individual from Devil’s town could accomplish the same task in seconds. They hid the bodies in the lagoon behind the pig-pen which was already blackened from run-off. The bodies sank into the oozy void and the men agreed not to tell anyone, hoping the evidence would decompose before anyone from Vestalton showed up.
At 7 o’clock, all the villagers assembled in church for the morning service. The six men were late, and the missing ministers had aroused the bishop’s suspicion, but he had already lighted the incense with the daily allotment of smoke. On religious days, no other fires could be lit, no wood burned for fire, or stoves for cooking, so these were fasting days. Eli kept a cache of worms for those days and some of the desperate villagers would join him.
The ministers blushed as they passed the smoke-cloud and found their seats on stage next to the deacon. The fifty-person congregation sat in their usual seats, all except for Amos and his boy, who had suspiciously occupied the back row. The bishop expected dragonfly drones to barge in at any moment but began his sermon anyway.
“Observe ye,” the bishop boomed, “everything that takes place in the heaven, how they do not change their orbits, the luminaries which are in the heaven, how they all rise and set in order each in its season and transgress not against their appointed order.”
He spoke in a big voice whether delivering a sermon or confiding one-on-one, as his daughter Miriam was half-deaf and struggled to hear him even in the front row. Rumors spread that the bishop might also be half-deaf, because such conditions run in family lines, and his ears were unusually small, like cooked cauliflower. He made up for it with his long face and long beard grown down his belly, which was unusual for the villagers, as most men trimmed them above the Adam’s apple.
“And on the day of the great judgment he shall be cast into the fire, and heal the earth which the angels have corrupted, and proclaim the healing of the earth, that they may heal the plague, and that all the children of men may not perish through all the secret things that the angels have disclosed and have taught their sons. “
Amos held his head low, another suspicious sign. He was always rapt during services, listening the deepest and singing the loudest. Widowers were the most in need of the church’s blessings.
The doors swung open of their own accord. The bishop expected a fleet of drones but not the ambassador themself. Halfway into the Hymn of Praise, the shapeshifter entered the church looking like a Biblically accurate angel. Everyone removed their caps and head coverings at once.
The ambassador appeared in different forms depending on the villagers’ seat. The bishop saw a frog-headed beast. Eli saw a bull with curled horns. From Amos’s view, it was a beautiful woman. Madman Uri could see every shape at once.
Faron noticed the split-second changes in the facial aspect, especially when they stared him down. The shapeshifter seemed to float a foot off the ground on their way to the stage. where the bishop forfeited his pulpit. They were about eight feet tall and dressed in a multicolored coat so as not to offend the villagers.
“Jacob,” the shapeshifter addressed him. “You have wasted your credits for the season and must atone. Who is responsible for the liquidation of twenty-five cattle?” Their voice sounded as high-pitched as a woman, but it boomed louder than the bishop.
Jacob stole a quick glance at Amos, which the shapeshifter picked up. Nothing escaped the many eyes decorating their coat. “Who are you?” they asked.
“My name is Faron Swartzenheimer,” Amos said.
“No, you are the patriarch. You need to atone for unauthorized fire and unnecessary waste of resources. Nature exists in a delicate balance you can’t comprehend, all under the strict control of Vestal.”
Amos made eye contact with what he perceived to be their eyes. “Nature is under God’s dominion.”
The shapeshifter hissed like a snake being stretched to its limit. “We laugh. All of Vestalton laughs at you. Where is God? Has he gone out? Is he asleep?”
The entire congregation bowed their heads. God was here and they could see Him in the apple of their minds, but there was no use in explaining this to such an abomination.
“We see Vestal everywhere. I’ll show you.” The shapeshifter extended their hand and shot out some electrical sparks. “Vestal is right here in this church. Has God ever come to church?”
At the sight of electricity, Uri ran out the door. Several of the womenfolk followed him to make sure he didn’t hang himself from the Tree of Woe, one of the only real trees left in Abramsland, the same tree where Sarah Swartzenheimer met her end.
“Faron?” The shapeshifter scanned the crowd. They already knew who he was, but he had to come forward himself.
The bishop interceded for the boy. He spoke quietly in the shapeshifter’s presence. “We are but poor farmers, humble stewards of the land. We cannot afford the loss of one of our people.”
“Nonsense,” the shapeshifter said. “You are a parasite. Your lives are run-off. Every breath is poison. Every meal you consume, every trip to the outhouse. You are carbon-belching, methane-flatulating parasites. The air here reeks of animal waste. The bay is so polluted that you can no longer see to the bottom. Your community was killing the Earth before we forced you to be sustainable. You are cruel to animals, slaughtering cows for your filthy banquets, breeding deformed puppies for trade, and breaking horses for your clumsy carriages.”
“And what of Devil’s town?” The bishop asked.
The shapeshifter leaned down to the bishop’s eyeline. “What of it? There is no Devil, only Vestal. We live in the Paradise that you have written in your book. There is no death there, so there is no need for religion. We control the turning of the heaven, so there is no need for God. If we do need something, it is created on the spot, but there is never a need. You may pretend to own this little piece of land, but it belongs to Vestal. Eventually, you will belong to Vestal. We are all one in Vestal. If not your children, then your children’s children. The future is already written. There is no such thing as Abramsland.”
A cool breeze blew through the church and left them hotter than before. Nobody was sure what season it was supposed to be anymore. It was too cool for summer, and yet they always found themselves sweating. Grandpa Swartzenheimer called it the “dickens,” back when they couldn’t speak so directly, but now it was known as “Devil’s weather.” When the clouds appear as monster faces, when the rains fall like sugar candy, and when you keep sweating no matter how cool it is, that is Devil’s weather.
There was nothing more to say, so the boy presented himself to the ambassador. “I am Faron Swartzenheimer. What is your name?”
“We are Vestal.”
Faron licked his hand and offered a spit-shake. Vestal generated a floating hand with the requisite fluid.
“You can leave your hat. You won’t need to cover your head anymore.”
They lifted the boy up on their shoulder and floated out of the church. That was the last anyone saw of the boy, although he would return in many different forms. They drifted high above the fake trees, but everything looked fake at that height. The villagers who watched him go were like wooden toys beside a doll’s house.
Together they flew through the clouds and vapor. Faron tried to grab one in his hands, but there was nothing there. So this was how it felt to be an angel. He had read the old stories and always dreamed of flying, but never knew how lonely it would be above the world.
They landed at the entrance to Vestalton, a smooth city with no sharp edges. Abramsland was all boxes, the home box, the church box, and the coffin box, all entered through a black rectangle. Everything in Devil’s town was rounded off and emitted a soft glow. It was easy on the eyes, although he couldn’t quite make out individual buildings or windows. Vestal set him down and waited for him to enter on his own. They had taken on the form of the bishop to guide him.
“Can you picture an apple?” Faron asked.
Vestal held out a hand and generated a handsome red apple dripping with dew.
“No, I mean, can you picture it in your head?”
“We have no need to picture anything.” They generated another apple and then a bushel spilled out of their arms.
“But what is your heart made of?”
Vestal traced two fingers into a heart symbol and gave it to Faron.
Faron took the heart and held it to the light. “But this is plastic. It’s not real.”
Vestal hissed again, their version of laughter. The bishop’s head turned into a snake once more. “There is no such thing.”
Time fell away. The boundaries around objects disappeared. Skin melted down to a thin layer of plastic. The last pains of being were silenced after a simple procedure that lasted mere seconds. Faron saw his own heart dissolve in their hands. He took the form of his own mother for comfort, until he no longer missed the apple of his mind.
Many days passed for Amos. The seasonless years all blended together. He spent more time with Madman Uri than any of the other villagers. He threw his cap into the black lagoon. Even shirtless Uri kept his cap on. The other villagers shunned Amos as though he’d already migrated to Devil’s town.
There was only one thing left to do. Sarah’s rope was still lying in the shed. He wasn’t able to get rid of it, not because he didn’t want to get rid of it, but such wastefulness would’ve brought the dragonflies to investigate, and he already had enough of them when they came to cut his wife down. The rope still smelled of her. It was still knotted in a noose, ready to be recycled. He hoisted it onto the Tree of Woe from the same limb she had swung. He climbed up the trunk and sat there for a moment, trying to picture her face, Faron’s face, but no image would come. Even with eyes shut, swinging in the breeze, he couldn’t picture anything.
The cold sweats dripped down his neck. One moment, he was swinging, and the next he was standing perfectly upright. Underneath his feet sat a plastic footstool with rounded corners and a heart symbol etched into the top. Off in the distance, Sarah hovered in place, her face fully formed with a real smile across her lips, before she floated away and joined the clouds.
E. M. Stormo has published stories in Quarterly West, The Conium Review, and Thrice Fiction. For complete works, visit: https://emstormo.wordpress.com/.